by Greg Dragon
Jovan shoved Duo against the grate, but when he spoke he was looking at Tau. “Both of you shut up. Let’s get this thing going. Come on, Lich, we have to go.”
Tau looked at him wearily. He seriously wants me to use my power again? He filed it away as another slight and then soldiered up his nerves and resumed the descent. When the elevator reached the bottom it was so bright outside that Tau considered running back to his apartment. What were they doing? Robbing people in broad daylight? Only the mafia was brazen enough to pull something like this off.
As a unit they moved towards the parking lot. Duo came up and touched his hand. When Tau looked down at him, he stuck out his fist and Tau hesitantly touched it with his own. It was a Jovan-taught gesture, a sign to make peace since Wolf Pack was never to be at odds within its membership. I won’t be a member for long, Tau thought to himself and wondered if his parents were up in heaven watching him make terrible mistakes in life.
Widget owned a brand new Ford sedan that she used to travel back and forth to Bethel Park, where she lived. Tau didn’t understand her, she had no reason to do what she was doing, but Jovan loved her and used her as a spy. Tau was skeptical of the tiny girl being a part of their crime. He, Jovan, and Duo would see double-digit years in a cell, while she, the rich girl, would get off with a slap on the wrist. This was the way of things.
He pulled his hood down, even though it couldn’t be pulled down any further, and slid into the passenger seat next to her. He was the tallest of the group so he always got the front while Jovan and Duo sat behind them, giggling like a couple of nerds. The hackers in full ninja fashion had brought their own motorcycles. They were smart, since it meant an easy getaway, whereas the rich girl’s car was pretty much a death trap.
With automated vehicles, law enforcement could force you to halt, pull over on command, and pop your trunk. Jovan didn’t seem to care about this, which Tau learned on his first trip. “Widget has it figured out,” is all he would say, and the plain-faced girl would glance over and give him a little smile.
She barely spoke but it was due to her braces, which she thought made her ugly—not quite. She grew out her hair so that it would cover her face, and wore long black robes and tall Frankenstein boots. While she looked like a ghost from a Japanese horror movie, she was actually a really nice person. But she acted young and had self-image issues. Tau didn’t understand what his roommate saw in her.
The ninjas sped off and the car rumbled to life, then followed their path at a moderate speed. Sun came out as they rolled south on the Fort Pitt Bridge, slipping past vehicles both occupied and unoccupied. It was a quick trip, the lack of traffic being a factor, and within fifteen minutes they had gotten off the highway and was making a left on to Washington Road.
The ninjas slowed down their bikes to ride alongside them and motioned towards a recharging station. Widget parked at the station, while the rest hopped out and crossed the street to the Upper Saint Clair Alliance Church. Widget’s part was done for now and they wouldn’t see her for an hour. She would drive home, make nice with the family, then make an excuse to leave to pick them up by the road.
They walked to the church’s parking lot and followed the road north, then cut east through the woods. Jovan had his tablet going, using its navigation, and when they emerged from the woods, they were in the backyard of a very modern house. It was an ICS dream, a smart dwelling, the kind that would be surrounded by cameras and silent alarms.
A rustling behind them made Tau spin with his fists clenched but it was only the ninjas catching up to them. Jovan put away his tablet and took a deep breath. He slapped Duo on the shoulder, then nodded at Tau. “They have an old school garage, Lich, just like Widget said. When I short that powerline, I need you to get it up. Do you know if you can control it?”
“It operates on a track and pulley, right? If it does, I can open it,” he said.
“With all this money, these dumbass people should have updated that garage,” Jovan remarked. He had a cocky air about him that Tau didn’t like, and he hoped that he was wrong about the garage. He was convinced at one time that all he could move were elevators until he looked into what it was that he actually controlled. Counterbalances, pulleys and weights; anything electrical attached to a system like this was easy to manipulate with his mind.
The glitch from earlier had frightened him, but female ninja’s hands were soft. I bet she hacks beautifully, he thought, staring at her gloved hands.
Jovan slipped forward and the lights went out. That was their cue to move. The five of them sprinted, Jovan bringing up the rear, and when they were close to the house, Tau closed his eyes and willed the garage door to open. Please don’t glitch. God, please don’t glitch! At first he thought it wouldn’t work since it didn’t immediately open, but then he cleared his mind and tried again, and the door slid up, revealing an expensive Mercedes Benz and a sleek silver vehicle that he had never seen before.
Apparently female ninja was a car enthusiast because she forgot her mission and stopped to gawk. They pulled her inside, and Tau released his magic, and just like that they had gained the house with neighbors and law enforcement unaware.
Duo cursed under his breath, then walked over to a panel and attached his tablet to it. His power was selected for this mission because he could talk to security systems. With the help of one of the ninjas he had access to the house’s network, then tricked it into believing that the alarms were still on. Once that was done, Jovan seemed to relax. His repeated shorting of the power had taken a toll on him, and he wasn’t looking very good.
Tau too felt weak. They were certainly going to prison, for numerous counts of burglary, hacks and more ... Duo was an expert at overriding systems, but Tau didn’t want to increase his odds of discovery by traipsing through the house. His part was done. He’d gotten them inside; now all he had to do was close his eyes and pray.
“Five minutes,” Jovan whispered. “Let’s get that money.”
“Five minutes? Pfft,” the car-loving ninja girl scoffed. “Look, they haven’t even bothered to change their OS! Whoa, oh ho-ho, there’s not even a login. Can you believe this shit? This day and age… The hardest part for me here is trying not to laugh my ass off.”
Her accent reminded Tau of Aniya, and he tried to imagine her as this foul-mouthed hacking beauty. The illusion worked, and they may even have been the same height. Duo was standing by the front door, sneaking looks outside as if he expected the police to show up at any minute.
Tau snuck up next to him and took a peek of his own, and what he saw made him close his eyes to fight back the panic. Parked next door was a police squad car, and lots of people were milling about.
“May as well chill,” Duo said to him. “It’s a bright day outside, and we aren’t going anywhere.”
Jovan overheard him and looked up from the male hacker’s tablet. He glanced at the windows and then shifted his eyes to Tau. “Widget says this place is a ghost town by the time the school busses clear outta here. It’s still early, we got another hour or so. Why don’t you look around the place, see how the other side lives. All of us will be here soon anyway. May as well familiarize yourself with rich people’s things.”
He went back to watching the hacker work and Tau wondered where the other one went. He was getting impatient, so he took Jovan’s advice and gave himself a tour of the modern home. It looked like any other home but there were no cords coming from anything. Controls for the house sat neatly in little alcoves built into the wall of every room. There was also a chance that there was an AI that could be accessed by knowing a specific set of commands. He walked to the bedroom, looked inside the bathroom, and did his best to avoid touching anything.
After an hour of their invasion they were ready to go, and Tau noticed that the squad car was no longer parked outside. As he peered through the window nothing seemed to stir. “I guess I’m not the only one with a predictable routine,” he muttered, and followed the re
st to the garage.
With the help of the hackers, Jovan had taken several keys. He reminded Tau and Duo that two of them were theirs once he was able to find a fence. They slipped back through the woods and was on the way back to the church when Tau noticed that the ninjas were no longer with them.
“Blackout, do you know them well?” he asked as they walked past the church, but Jovan didn’t answer immediately.
“I know ‘em through, Bonk, and he vouched for what they can do. They were good, right? That girl knew her shit, and the dude fixed the alarm for you, Duo. I didn’t want to put you on blast but had he not caught it, our asses would be in jail right now. But, relax gentlemen, we just got paid, and here comes our ride right now.”
4 | Laundry Night
Tau and Aniya began to run into one another at odd times during the week and he began to look forward to it. No, this was an understatement … he needed to see her. When he would enter the elevator and she wasn’t there, he would watch the floors as they lit up, hoping within his heart of hearts that she would be there when it opened.
About a month after their first meeting, they knew each other’s names. When he asked her out she told him no, and he avoided the elevator for a week. Jovan of all people encouraged him to stop sulking and talk to her, and Tau got over it by convincing himself that she was out of his league.
This was Aniya, his elevator love, and one of the only blips on the radar of an otherwise routine life. He often wondered if she was a Siren. It would explain the mystery and her unwillingness to go out.
Like all Sirens, Tau and Jovan’s powers manifested themselves after “the event.”
He was staying with his parents when it all happened, hanging out inside of his bedroom. He was jacked into the internet, surfing around while talking to Jovan and another friend. BOOM! Blackness, and then his mind went blank. When he woke up it was to the sound of sirens and paramedics asking him unintelligible questions.
The fallout after the event was an even bigger deal. Lights went out in the city, and anarchy reigned supreme. Tau’s parents fell victim to gangsters breaking into homes, and they lost their lives while he was in a coma. They never caught the killers, and he inherited his parents’ numerous debts. He had never worked so hard in his life as he did back then. But staying busy helped him to get through his grief. Nothing was the same after that.
The event should have broken him, but it didn’t finish the job. He mourned his parents, did what he could to survive, and then hooked up with Jovan to live in the Hennas. They were the best of friends, but Tau had changed, and he viewed Jovan as a liability that would have him in jail or killed.
The Laundromat of the G.Henna building was located on the second floor, at the end of the hall past the busted vending machines. Tau washed his clothes every Friday night when most of the building was out. It was a welcome respite from Jovan and the other “geniuses,” and he used the time to catch up on his reading.
As he sat by a washing machine, skimming his book, he heard a commotion coming from the hall. He looked up from his reader, hoping that it would go away, but when it grew louder he knew that it would be something to ruin his night.
He put the reader on sleep mode and stood up, watching the door. He clenched his fist and prepared himself for the chaos that was about to ensue. The door flew open and he stepped forward, but none other than Aniya walked in. Her buds were so loud that he could hear the song from across the eighteen-foot floor.
She was a tornado of destruction, slamming the door and throwing her basket on the table. Though he waved at her and moved so that she could see him, Aniya only noticed him when she paused to sort her clothes.
“Hello,” she sang, happy despite her body language, and Tau couldn’t help but show his teeth as he considered how lucky he was in this instance. An empty Laundromat with the one woman that he would do anything to be with. It has to be something else beyond luck, he thought. But it was an opportunity, so he focused on playing it cool.
“Hey, Aniya, you come to do laundry?”
“No way, that’s lame. I actually came down here for my health,” she said. Then the smile slipped from her face with frightening ease, and she placed her hands on the table and stared at him. “Can I ask you something?” Her intense violet eyes looked almost black. She walked over to him slowly with her tiny hips swaying. He saw that she was wearing jeans and a wicked pair of black boots, but it was her top that excited him and he caught himself staring.
Aniya was wearing a man’s undershirt, it was a white “wife-beater” tank top and she must have been out of bras. Her large nipples stood pronounced on a pair of small pointy breasts. Tau felt his lower half stirring, and he sat down quickly to hide his excitement.
Aniya’s eyes were a library of feedback, and he knew that she could read into what was going on with him. He felt powerless. He was completely out of control, to the point where he couldn’t even look at her.
Will she call me out for being a pervert? he wondered, or will she continue to grill me with those big, judgmental eyes … those big, beautiful judgmental eyes—
“What’s up?” he managed, annoyed at the cracking that his voice made. He tried to conjure up a mental image to force his flagstaff south. He thought of Jovan, and it almost worked, but Aniya was only a foot away from him, and Jovan was not the cure.
“Do you ever go out, or do you just like it here?” she asked, standing in front of him with her hands on her hips. “I run into you a lot, it’s weird. I see you more than anybody else in this great big ol’ building.”
Is she kidding? I’m never here. “I go out a lot actually,” he said. “It could be our schedules. Like now, seeing you here. No one ever comes in here.”
Aniya shrugged, and it was somehow cute. She adjusted her shirt and he felt his face turning red.
“You came in pretty amped. You listening to The Harmonics?” he blurted out suddenly, desperate to fix the situation.
Aniya smirked and then removed a bud from her ear and placed it gently against his. It was an Electronic War Metal song, a new age sound, and though he hated that genre of music, he could see how it would motivate a tiny sprite like Aniya to want to kick in doors.
Her finger on his ear was electricity and he wanted to reach up and take it into his mouth. His breathing became labored, and he nodded up at her, playing it cool but begging for air. She seemed to understand, or was that smile and nod really a form of dismissal? She removed the bud and placed it back on her ear.
“Not into EWM, huh?” she said. “Don’t worry, it’s okay. Kinda like a guilty pleasure for me, you know? Helps me to not focus on my craptastic life.”
Christ, Ann, I just want to touch you, Tau thought as he followed her every movement. “Yeah, you threw me for a loop,” he said, back to playing it cool. “A girl that likes Phoenix Ray. I wouldn’t think you would be into that new age stuff. You can barely call it music.” Damn, did I just say that?
“Shut up, loser. Leave my EWM alone,” she joked. “Plus, I’m full of surprises. Right? Did you forget our movie talk? I can still see your face when I mentioned that I loved Interstellar.” She gave him a sly smile and threw her clothes in the machine. He was about to defend himself when she marched out of the door quickly to answer a phone call.
I bet that’s a boyfriend, he thought, his excitement finally coming down. Chicks that hot are always cursed to have a douchebag in the rafters.
An hour passed before she returned, and her mood had grown dark. Tau was back into his book with half of his clothes neatly folded, though he was about to check on her right before she walked back in. It was as if their minds were in sync, and he was happy to see her return. Though now she looked as if she could use a hug, but he resisted the urge to try.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
She stopped, then turned to give him a forced smile. “What do you have going on tonight, Tau?”
“Nothing, just laundry,” h
e said.
“Do you want to come up and watch a movie with me?”
What!? Is she pulling my leg? he thought. “Yeah, of course!” he said loudly, then cleared his throat. “I mean … that would be cool, Ann.”
“Alright,” she said, “I’m glad you said yes. They just opened up a Kubrick section on MIMES. I was really, really not trying to experience it alone. Some of his movies are creepy!”
“Damn, Stanley Kubrick? I had no idea you were a fan. Now you have me really excited.”
Aniya gave him a knowing look, as if to say: “I know what you’re really excited about.”
Her apartment was barely furnished, but it was neat in its simplicity. There was a tiny projector that hung down from the ceiling, and a frame on the wall where the movies would play. The couch was a futon that looked to be made from pipes, and it was piled up with pillows, all monochromatic polka dots and stripes.
The walls were an eggshell color, with framed art that showed classical cars from the Model-T all the way up to the Tesla Model 4K. Her carpet was brown, but not from dirt like his and Jovan’s. It was a beautiful mahogany—soft and fluffy—that he knew that he could lie on.
When she let him in, she walked to her cupboard and brought out a bottle of red wine. Tau wasn’t a drinker—alcohol made him break out in hives—but he nodded quickly when she offered and accepted the long-necked glass.
They sat and watched movies from 9:00 PM till about 2:30 AM in the morning. Though Aniya sat close enough for him to feel her heat, Tau couldn’t bring himself to make a move. He found it hard to focus, too busy fighting his urges, and second and third guessing himself.
When Eyes Wide Shut was on the screen it was just too much to stand. He glanced over at Aniya, who met his gaze and held it just a second too long. Her eyes seemed to challenge him to do something risky, and doubt began to rear its ugly head again. But Tau fought back and threw all care to the wind. He leaned in slowly to kiss her lips.
